


Can You Feel the Weight of It? (The Whole World at Your Fingertips)

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha Friendship, October Prompt Challenge, Pre-Relationship, a literal interpretation of holding on to scars, beau's here to help, general softness, it's about the trust and vulnerability, it's the yearning being set aside for being a good friend, takes place after 111, yasha's ready to heal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: Yasha comes to Beau with a secret to reveal and a request of her. Set immediately before whatever it is they decide to do wrt going after Molly.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 10
Kudos: 133





	Can You Feel the Weight of It? (The Whole World at Your Fingertips)

**Author's Note:**

> Kinktober/promptober fill: Day 12, Whips
> 
> I used up all my sexy in the fic earlier today, hence the T rating on this.

"Is this why you haven't let me see your back?" Beau touches steady, gentle fingertips to the white lines crisscrossing Yasha's broad back and tries to deal with the feelings the sight of them cause in her.

Stretched out facedown under her with her head on her arms, Yasha nods quietly.

Beau places her other hand on Yasha's skin and presses in gently. "I'm glad you showed me," she says, "but I don't really get why you were hiding them. I mean I've got a million scars and you've seen most of them." Yasha's muscles tense under her hands, and then relax with an effort of will Beau can see from here. She knows what Yasha looks like when she's gathering her thoughts, so she kneads Yasha's shoulders gently from her position straddling her lower back and just waits.

They're on Beau's bed, because Yasha had come to find her, and she'd be lying if she said there wasn't a part of her that is very turned on by all of this - she is sitting on Yasha, who is shirtless on her bed, and there's only so much blame she can take for the feeling - but more than that, she's intensely curious what about this has had Yasha so bothered. And why show her now?

"Counting all of those as one," Yasha says slowly, "I have two scars."

Beau finds a knot, presses her fingers over and around it gently. As Yasha relaxes a little, she says, "That's not very many for the amount of times you get hit. Is it an aasimar thing?"

Yasha shrugs a little. "I actually have no idea. But…" and the air changes; Beau feels it and listens raptly. Yasha takes a deep breath. "I've always been able to choose, kind of, what stays and what goes."

Beau's hands stop. "You kept these on purpose?"

Yasha's voice is quiet and a little strained. "Yes."

Beau shrugs and starts rubbing again. "Badass."

Yasha groans as Beau's thumb takes on a sensitive spot, and then she says, "They remind me of Molly."

Beau blinks. Yasha's tensed now, like she's expecting Beau to…get mad? Feel bad for her? She's not sure. Mostly she's just confused. "Molly whipped you?" Kinky, and right up his alley, honestly. It's Yasha she's confused about.

"They're from the Iron Shepherds."

Beau pauses again, but resumes much more quickly this time. "Oh."

"I wasn't there," Yasha continues. "When he needed me. I know it's weird, but I-"

"Yash," Beau cuts her off gently. Yasha shifts her weight a little to twist and look up at her. She could see a breast, probably, if she looked. She doesn't look, instead moves one hand up to push Yasha's hair out of her eyes. "You don't have to explain," she says. "I've got a bunch of scars I'd keep for a bunch of reasons even if I could get rid of them. I get you. Just." She hesitates. "Are you okay?"

Yasha blinks a little. "I'm not sure."

At Beau's thoughtful nod, she lies back down and readjusts. Beau continues kneading, appreciating the muscle under her hands, the way Yasha's skin is so smooth under hers. "I just wondered if there was a reason you wanted me to see them. Tonight, specifically."

She doesn't have to say "the night before we go looking for Molly" - it hangs between them as surely as though she had.

Her thumbs on either side of Yasha's neck now, careful to avoid the spot where Obann's mark once was. No scar there, she notes, but it's not a place she feels would be great to put her hands all over either. Yasha groans, presses her face down further into the pillow. Her words are slightly muffled when she speaks again. "I was thinking I might be ready to let these go."

Beau's surprised, no denying. "When we don't even know if we've really found him yet?"

Yasha nods, lifts her head a little. "It's _because_ we don't know if it's him," she says. "If it is, I wouldn't need them anyway. If it's not…" she gets a little quieter. "They were never really for him, right?"

Beau shifts from kneading to drag the back of her nails up from the base of Yasha's spine to between her shoulder blades, relishing in the way Yasha shivers under her as gooseflesh prickles. "I didn't know him as well as you," Beau replies, "but I get the feeling he wouldn't be too thrilled you were carrying around memories of torture in his name."

Yasha huffs and smiles. "He'd call me an idiot." She shudders again as Beau drags her fingers down, slower this time, back towards her waistband.

And maybe Beau is working her up, just a little, testing the boundary, but she's not going to do anything stupid and risk this vulnerability Yasha's brought her. She resumes kneading at the small of Yasha's back. "So how do you make them go away? Do you just…think it?"

Yasha lays her head sideways on her folded arms, looking towards but not quite at Beau. "I was thinking…it might be nice to tell you about him, from before you knew him."

She says it lightly, but Beau feels the enormity of the offer. Yasha never talks about her past, not unprompted, and only rarely when directly asked. Had she come in here tonight, asked for Beau's help, knowing it would be for this?

Beau wants to feel tricked into doing feelings, but she's honestly just feeling flattered. "Of course," she says. "Tell me everything."

Yasha smiles gratefully and makes an exaggerated thinking sound. "Well, he taught me how to braid my hair before he learned to talk. That's got to be a first, right? I had just accepted a job with the carnival, was still mostly…"

It takes her three hours to tell Beau everything, and by the end of it they're both a little teary. The last of the scars had faded an hour in, and Beau has been simply lying on Yasha's back and playing with her hair ever since, occasionally asking questions to egg Yasha on.

"Beau?" Yasha says after she's been quiet for long enough that Beau has started to suspect she's asleep but for her breathing.

"Yeah?"

"I hope it's him."

Beau's had two hours to get comfortable touching Yasha, and though she could probably keep doing it forever, the important thing is that she knows it's okay to reach out and slide her knuckles against Yasha's cheek. She murmurs, "Me too, Yash."

They fall asleep like that, Beau's hand against Yasha's face and her bare midriff warm against Yasha's back, and as Beau's eyes droop shut for the last time, she hears Yasha: "thank you, Beauregard."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I'll Keep you Safe" by Sleeping at Last


End file.
